TED Radio Hour - Listen Again: School Of Life (2020)

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

Original broadcast date: October 2, 2020. Millions of kids returned to school this month. But if there's one thing we've learned from the past two years, it's that there's so much to learn outside the classroom as well. This hour, TED speakers explore life lessons that teach us far more than any textbook. Guests on the show include politician Stacey Abrams, sailor Tracy Edwards, educator Alvin Irby, and LGBTQ rights advocate Ash Beckham. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey, it's Manus here. It's September. And in the U.S., that means millions of kids are going back to school. But if there is one thing we've learned in the last 18 months, it's that the outside world can teach us a lot, too. And that's what this episode is all about, the inspiring lessons that TED speakers have learned in the School of Life. This show first aired last October, but it was just the reminder I needed to look for learning operations. opportunities everywhere. Plus, Stacey Abrams story is pretty amazing. So I hope you enjoy it again or for the first time. And thank you so much for being here. This is the TED Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks. Our job now is to dream big. Delivered at TED conferences. To bring about the future we want to see around the world. To understand who we are. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will serve.

surprise you. You just don't know what you're going to find. Challenge you. We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy? And even change you. I literally feel like I'm a different person. Yes. Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading. From Ted and NPR. I'm Manoosh Zamoroti. So in Georgia, when you are the valedictorian of your high school, you are invited to meet the governor of Georgia.

I was valedictorian of my high school. So I was valedictorian of my high school. So I I got invited to meet the governor of Georgia. This is Stacey Abrams. She's a lawyer, an author, and a politician. But my family were working poor. So we spent most of our time using public transit to get around. Therefore, on the day we went to go and visit the governor's mansion, which is in a really ritzie part of Atlanta, we had to take the bus.

My parents and I get off the bus. We walk across the street and we get to the guard. gate. The guard looks at me, looks at my parents. He looks at the bus that's pulling away, and he tells us we don't belong here. He assumed we were visitors coming to just view the governor's mansion as tourist. And my dad says, no, no, you know, this is my daughter Stacey. She's one of the valedictorians. But the guard didn't look at the list that he had. He didn't accept the invitation my mom had in her purse. He just kind of sneered at us. and he said, look, you don't belong here.

Stacey Abrams picks up her story from the TED stage. Now, my parents were studying to become United Methodist ministers, but they were not pastors yet. My father may have mentioned that he was going to spend eternity in a very fiery place if he didn't find my name on that checklist. And indeed, the man checks the checklist eventually, and he found my name, and he led us inside. But I don't remember meeting the governor of Georgia.

I don't recall meeting my fellow valedictorians from 180 school districts. The only clear memory I have of that day was a man standing in front of the most powerful place in Georgia looking at me and telling me I don't belong. And so I decided 20-some-odd years later to be the person who got to open the gates. In 2018, Stacey ran for governor of Georgia. When you chose me as your Democratic nominee. And that was the first time in the history of the United States. states that a black woman was a major political party's pick to govern a state.

But Stacey lost. I acknowledge that former Secretary of State Brian Kemp will be certified as the victor in the 2018 gubernatorial election. You came really close to winning the governor's seat and being that person in the governor's mansion. And I can't help but think that that awful moment back in high school actually played a really big role in shaping who you would become, who you are now. No, that's absolutely true.

It became part of the narrative when I was running for governor, in part because I needed people to understand that I wasn't raised with this notion that I could ever aspire to being governor of a state, let alone being the first black women to do this. I had never thought of myself necessarily as a change agent in that way. But there is something very galling but also very motivating about some stranger telling you who you are and what you mean. And when I ran for governor, for me, it was about saying, look, I was told long time ago I didn't belong in this place. And I've spent my life, whether intentionally or not, proving him wrong. But it wasn't about him. It wasn't about what he saw or didn't see in me. It was about who I am and who I intend to be.

And I belong here as much as anybody else. Okay, so looking back on that moment, what do you think you learned? Yeah, I think there are a few things. One is that humiliation isn't permanent. When you're young, you think of each moment of just embarrassment as this permanent scar. and it stops us from trying so many things. Well, I was humiliated by a guard. He was a state trooper, and he felt it was in his power to diminish me.

And while he did have the effect of erasing what could have been a wonderful memory for me, the humiliation of that moment didn't have the power to stop me from becoming who I would be. And I think the second is that you learn to dream bigger. I'd never met a lawyer growing up. I'd never met a politician. So part of what you can learn is that you can dream beyond the things you know because I read about them. I found other examples that were outside of my daily life, but were within the scope of my imagination. It's been nearly two years now of school closures.

remote learning and hybrid learning. But we've discovered there's so much we can learn outside of school. The lessons just look a little different. And so on the show today, we're talking about the school of life. Ideas about how our everyday interactions can shape us and why pivotal moments in our lives teach us more than any textbook. Just ask Stacey Abrams. My first campaign for governor was really,

a study in how gender impacts how you can run for office and how race and gender intersect. I had a primary and my opponent also had the name, first name of Stacey. We spelled it the same way. The distinction was our race. And for so many people, that was the only difference they could tell. They actually called us the Stacey's. It's a showdown between the Stacey's, Stacey Abrams and Stacey Evans. something that would never happen with men.

It's the Battle of the Stacey's with Stacey Evans running against St. And so part of the first race was really about me dispelling mythology about who I was and whether I was even capable of standing for this office. And then in the general election, I ran against the guy who was in charge of running the elections. So using a sports metaphor, I ran against the contestant, the referee, and the scorekeeper. It did not turn out well for me. But it turned out better than I think anyone expected, given that we came within 54,000 votes out of nearly 4 million.

I faced a few obstacles in this race. But in the pursuit, I became the first black woman to ever become the nominee for governor in the history of the United States of America for a major party. My question became, how do I move forward? How do I get beyond the bitterness and the sadness? and the lethargy and watching an inordinate amount of television as I eat ice cream. What do I do next? And I'm going to do what I've always done. I'm going forward because going backwards isn't an option and standing still is not enough.

No matter what I do, I ask myself three questions. What do I want? Why do I want it? And how do I get it? Listening to you talk, I bet some people would think, and I probably would have thought that you are a real risk taker. But having heard your TED talk, I actually think you are extremely strategic. So often we jump from the wanting to the doing, but so critical to take that time and to really excavate what it is that you want, but why it is that you want it. because when it's hard when people are saying inappropriate things about you,

when your opponent has a commercial where you are portrayed as King Kong climbing the side of a building in one of the most racist, sexist tropes you can imagine, you have to know why you're doing this stuff. Right. And then the third is know how you're going to get it. It is important to make a plan. I try things that are guaranteed to fail at least half the time. but I know ambition and dreams without a plan. It's just a wish. So I think about it. I write it down. I figure out what are the steps. And I've been not only chastised for being too ambitious, I've been called to calculating.

But particularly when you come from a place where people don't expect of you, that also means they don't teach you how. And so my approach is I'm going to teach myself how and I'm going to find people who help me navigate because anything less is nearly a guarantee than I'm not going to be successful. Do you get any satisfaction out of proving people's expectations wrong or realizing that they have no expectations and then showing them all the things that you can achieve or does that just annoy you? I can be a petty human. Yeah. I mean, there is there is satisfaction. There are some people who have been very intentional and disciplined about their underestimation of me. When I was running for governor, I had a group of people who I would have said, these are my friends, these are people I can rely on. They had been there for me. But when I called them about running for governor, they said, well, you know, you're smart and you're capable. well, you're probably the best candidate, but you're a black woman. And they would whisper it.

And you're like, I know. That's exactly it. That's exactly what I would do. I'm like, I've seen me. This is not news. But their expectations of me ended at the water's edge of race. Not just a black person, but a black woman that suspended their expectations of me. And it was one of the most devastating part.

of running. So yes, I take some satisfaction from it, but I also take the disappointment I felt and try to use that to cushion the blow for others. It's important for people to know it's okay to want more. And I don't want another young black woman who has this ambition to be told by people she trust that she's thinking too much and she wants too much and she needs to stop. It sounds like you are still a really good student watching and learning and figuring out the best way to accomplish all the things that you listed. But how much do you feel like at this point it's time for people to learn from you? I, you know, my mom was a librarian when I was growing up. She was a research librarian.

And so I grew up believing that there is no end to the, the acquisition of knowledge. There's no end to the acquisition of learning. There is also always an opportunity to share what you've learned, not simply by reciting it, but by living it. And so I hope every day that I am demonstrating in real time in an active practice what I believe to be true. You know, I'm not the governor of Georgia. I didn't get the thing I wanted. And my responsibility in that moment, if there was a teachable moment there was how I responded. I started doing something about the next thing. That's Stacey Abrams. She's a lawyer, author, and founder of Fair Fight Action,

an organization working to protect the right to vote. You can see her full talk at TED.com. On the show today, lessons from the School of Life. I'm Manushe Zamoroti, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Support for this podcast and the following message come from the American Jewish World Service. Working together for more than 30 years to build a more just and equitable world. Learn more at AJWS.org. It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

I'm Manushe Zamoroti. And today on the show, The School of Life, how some lessons could never happen in a classroom. Hey, Tracy, are you there? Hi, how are you? Hey, I'm doing well. I'm thrilled to hear your voice. Thank you so much for doing this. This is Tracy Edwards. My name is Tracy Edwards. I am around the world sailor and a social activist. Well, you're a record-breaking around the world sailor, a social activist.

But is it also fair to say you are also someone who did not thrive at school? Like, you were not a good student? Yeah, I think not a good student would be the understatement of the century. I was just about opposite to everything you would hope having in a daughter. I thank goodness my daughter is totally different from me. I had a difficult time during my teenage years. My father died when I was 10

and my mother married, unbeknownst to her, obviously, an abusive alcoholic. It just didn't make for a happy teenager. and I rebelled quite spectacularly. I hung around with a group of kids who, I guess we were all fighting against something and, you know, we were drinking and staying out all night. I was aggressive, angry.

I was so angry all the time. And I stopped going to school because I was being bullied at school. I didn't tell my parents I just stopped going. And what really brought things to her head was I stole a car and was arrested. Wow. Yeah. And then it was eventually expelled from school. What?

Like, what did you do? What did your mom do? My poor mother. My mother took a long, hard look at me and said, right, something has to change. You know, you're obviously not happy. I think you are not in the right place and you need to go and find what it is. you're looking for, which is very brave of her at the age of, you know, I was 15. Wow. Yeah.

So at 16, I left home and I went backpacking to Greece and ended up working in a bar in Greece, which is how I ended up getting onto boats. I mean, I got to say, it is kind of remarkable that your mom gave you permission to leave school and to go to Greece. I mean, it was incredibly brave of her. I mean, she said to me, every human being is. good at at least one thing. You have just got to go and find what that one thing is. And then she said, you know, once you found it, you know, it will change your life. And I dread to think where I would

have ended up if she hadn't let me do that. So at 16, Tracy was on her own. In Greece, working as what was then called a stewardess on a boat, basically cleaning up after wealthy guests on luxury yachts. So, I mean, it was hard work, but when you're sailing around the Greek islands, you know, you can kind of put up with anything. I just felt, this is me. I've just landed on my feet. I'd fallen over my own path. And for me, it wasn't necessarily the ocean or the sailing to start off with. That came later.

It was the people. I felt like I found my tribe. All of us were running away from something. We were nomads and... wonderers, if you like, and I just, I slid right in there. Okay, so you said you didn't start working on boats because you loved sailing, but you eventually did learn to love sailing and it involved your skipper. Yes.

How did that happen? So I was doing my second transatlantic, and he said to me, can you navigate? And I said, of course I can't navigate, you know. I was expelled before long division, you know, I mean, no. And, you know, he looked at me and he said, well, what are you going to do if I fall over the side? And I said, well, I, you know, I'll use the, whatever that is, the navigational stuff. He said, you know, what if the batteries go down? I'm like, oh, for goodness sake, I don't know, I'll shout help.

And he looked at me and he said, why are you a bystander in your own life? you're supposed to be playing the starring role in your own life. And I just thought, I mean, that's a bit profound for two days out into the Atlantic. But I thought, wow, he's right. And in two days, he taught me to navigate. He taught me how to use a sextant, a book of tables, charts. And it was one of the most profound moments of my life.

And I fell in love with navigation then. And I have never lost that passion for it. You know, being able to tell wherever you are in the world with a few basic set of instruments. It's amazing. And did you think, you know, forget doing the washing? This is, I got to find my way across various oceans. Not really because women didn't do that. I could navigate, but I wasn't allowed to at that time.

This is 35, 40 years ago. you got on and your job was cook or stewardess. So I kind of put that to one side, I guess, in my mind. I sailed many oceans, so the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, the Maldives, the Seychelles. But I knew in the back of my mind that this type of cruising was probably not for me forever. I needed something else. There was something missing, but I didn't know what it was.

And then I heard about the 85-86 whipbread around the world race. What is the whipbread for people who've never heard of it? The whipbread around the world race is the toughest yacht race in the world. It starts and finishes in the UK and it's 33,000 miles and it's nine months. And it was the pinnacle of ocean racing, you know, the peak of what guys wanted to achieve. I didn't really know that then. I just thought it looked like good fun. But girls don't do it.

There's just no way I would have got on a boat as anything other than a cook. But I was, you know, okay, fine. I'll do that. So I did the 8586 whipbread on a boat called Atlantic Privateer, which was very aptly named because they were a complete bunch of pirates,

these guys. I mean, I adored them, but I could have killed them a lot of times as well. You were the only woman on the boat for nine months, traveling the world on a, that's it. Like, just you. Yeah. Well, we were, we were racing. So you're racing around the world. So it's very focused. It's very professional. You know, there were 26 boats, I think, in that race. So 260 crew and there were three girls.

Okay. So you hear about this around the world race and you decide, sounds fun. Even though I don't think you had ever been in a race and there were hardly any other women. I mean, were you scared? Not really. They were, they were such great sailors and I learned so much from them. And when we finished the race nine months later in April, 1986, I just thought, wow, I have got to do that again. But I don't want to be a cook. I want to go around as an navigator. And, you know, I had this really, again, a very profound moment when I realized no male crew is ever going to allow you to be a navigator. It's not going to happen. And that was the first time in my life, I felt that I was being prevented from doing something I wanted to do because I was a

girl. Because to my mum, it was no surprise. You know, she was like, oh, well, welcome to the real world. Yeah. But, you know, she said another thing, which was, again, which set me off on another course, which was, she said, if you don't like the way the world looks, change it. Don't moan about it. change it. Your mom. She was amazing woman. I miss her so much. Yeah. So I thought, well, how do I change it? Okay. Well, I have to have my own boat. I guess I have to have my own boat, which means I have to have my own team. And let's make it a team of girls so that we can prove to men that we can do this. So, I mean, it wasn't, it didn't start off being this, you know, rah, rah, let's prove women can do stuff. It was a selfish reason initially, because I

wanted to navigate. And it was only really when we announced this first all-female cruise sailor out of the world to much laughter and derisory comments that I thought, right, okay, I am now doing this for every woman in the world. You know, women would turn up on my doorstep and go, right, point me in the direction where I can help, you know, okay, well you can stuff those sponsorship envelopes and you can go into that boat show and try and raise us some money. I mean, some of us had two, three jobs at the same time. And of course, around us, all these multi-million pound male racing teams,

you know, with their shiny boats and their shiny crew. There was us. Rag-tag girl, so I love it. And we were quite a novelty because no one had ever seen women in a shipyard before. So we used to arrive in the morning and literally jaws, would drop open. I mean, what you're describing to me, I'm a little worried for you at this point

because I'm concerned that the whole thing's going to fall apart in the middle of an ocean. Well, no, we had some really amazing people give us a lot of help. And I mean, remember that the women I was employing were also professional racing. These were women who loved sailing and loved racing and were told, no, you can't do that.

So they said, well, sod you, then we're going to go and sail, with this all-female crew. And we weren't taken seriously by the rest of the fleet, but we were very confident. We were very sure of what we were doing. We'd done probably more ocean miles than any other team. We'd been together longer than any other team.

We didn't have as much money. But our battle to get to the start line had made us into a tight-knit, battle-hardened team. Everyone else was just starting out, so we almost had an advantage. The start of the Whitbread is a celebration of sail. As thousands of boats. September 2nd, 1989, you line up with the other boats in your class to embark on a race around the world.

Some people didn't think that you'd make it. Like, some of them thought that actually you and your group of women were going to die at sea. What was the mood like? Oh, God, we were completely confident. On board made, and Tracy Edwards had something to prove. We never had any doubt. Really? Yeah, oh, absolutely.

We, yeah. If you're a woman, you're told you have to look like this, be like that, you have to use this, use that. Go in the Southern Ocean, you spend 28 days, you don't have to wash, you don't have to dress properly, you don't have to do your hair, it's great. I mean, I've finished the 85-8-6 whipbread and I just went, why are they telling us that's difficult? It's not difficult. This race is the ultimate challenge of man against man as well as man against the sea. You know, this was a very well-kept secret, this, you know, this men, only men. can sail around the world thing.

And yeah, I mean, when we didn't win the first leg, we were gutted. Everyone else was just really pleased that we were alive. But, you know, the second leg we started off into the southern ocean. From Uruguay in South America to Australia, 6,800 miles, 5, nearly 6 weeks at sea. Freezing cold, huge seas, and winds of 40 to 50 miles per hour. And we were completely confident. that we were going to be able to win that leg, actually, and we did. You had described what it was like to be sailing around with a group of men as the only woman.

What was it like to be sailing around with a group of all women? We were a lot more collaborative as a team. My word was final, my decision was final because someone has to take responsibility. and the buck always thoughts with the captain. But yeah, no, we were a lot more, had a lot more discussions than I'd ever seen on racing around the world with men. And it worked. I mean, goodness gracious, we'd just talked for nine months pretty much.

I read that also that you would let the girls play music and that there was kind of a festive atmosphere on your boat compared to others. Yeah, well, music, I felt was really, really important. You know, you can be professional and race fast and hard and, you know, knuckle down to the work and listen to music. You know, it's not, I know that a lot of the boats banned music. Really? They banned them? Yeah. I'm sorry, but if you've got top gun playing on the speakers on deck at full glass,

highway through the danger zone in the Southern Ocean, it's a huge driver, you know, picks you up. It's like, yeah. What a welcome, though, awaits Tracy Edwards and her crew. So tell me how the race ended. Well, the race ended up with us coming second overall and winning two legs. Yes, it's an historic moment. Second in your division, which is a really big deal. The best result for a British boat since 1977 and it hasn't actually been beaten.

Maidens engulfed by a huge spectator fleet. It was extraordinary. A latilla of 600 yachts came out to meet us. As the 12 women complete the task they set out to do nine months ago, months ago. Fifty thousand people standing on the dot, I mean literally climbing over each other, it was absolutely amazing. 30 years later, I understand how we did change things. At the time, I don't think we realised quite the impact that we'd had, but we knew that

we'd achieved something which we could be proud of and which we hope the next all female crew could build on. I hope that this has done a lot for British yachting and I hope it's done a lot for women's sailors. And men sailors and everyone, and I hope everyone feels good about maiden and what we've done, because we feel great. So you all went your separate ways, is that right? Yeah, so a lot of the crew got really great jobs on racing boats. Pella got married.

I got married and got divorced very quickly. And then I went into another sailing project. I did the first or female crew to attempt non-stop around the world record. Unfortunately, we lost our mast in the Southern Ocean, and we didn't break that record. And then, I guess, 20 years ago, I put together the first ever mixed gender professional racing team

because, you know, the whole point about getting all-female crews wasn't that, you know, the world needs all-female crews. We wanted to prove that we could race with the men because ocean racing is a level playing field. So we had six girls and six guys on 125-foot catamaran, fastest both in the world at the time. And a male skipper and a female skipper, it worked absolutely brilliantly. I mean, it was harmonious, it was competitive, and it really taught me that men and women can work

together, you know, we can work this out, you know, and have this equality, which we're all striving for, then that's when we're at our most effective. We were the most successful record-breaking team for 10 years. You know, Tracy, you are someone who is so accomplished, despite not having a formal education. So I guess I'm wondering, like, in this moment when school has been upended for so many students, what advice would you have for making the most of the situation? I think the most successful friends of mine who seem to be getting the most out of this are the ones that are embracing it, you know, that quality time with their children.

I know that the actual scholarly, you know, scholastic part of the learning outside school has been difficult, but then maybe this is the moment in time where we replace the exams and that regimented education system that we have. You know, maybe we can replace that with those things that we've just talked about, you know, sort of learning, problem solving and resilience and how to save the planet and how to work together to sort out this mess, quite frankly, that my generation has made. That's Tracy Edwards. And by the way, the boat that Tracy and her all-female crew sailed in the Whitbread was called Maiden. And in 2015, Tracy launched The Maiden Factor, a nonprofit that raises money for girls' education.

On the show today, the School of Life. I'm Manushe Zamorodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. This message comes from NPR sponsor, Discover. Discover matches all the cash back you earn on your credit card at the end of your first year automatically, with no limit on how much you can earn. It's amazing because of all the places where Discover is accepted, 99% of places in the U.S. that take credit cards. So when it comes to Discover, get used to hearing yes more often. Learn more at Discover.com slash match. 2021-Nelson Report limitations apply.

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slash promos for full offer details. It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Minoosh Zamor. Okay, so my name is Mr. Irby. Can you all say Mr. Irby? Mr. Irby. Herb. So today I'm going to read a really, really fun and a really funny and a really exciting. Today on the show, The School of Life, lessons we learn outside the classroom. So take reading. Most kids get taught how to read at school.

But learning to love to read, that doesn't always happen. You know, I want children to be free to realize their full potential. And I think that key to that is children identifying as readers and understanding that if they control when and what they read, they can learn anything. This is Alvin Irby. He's an author, educator, comedian. And he's the founder of Barbershop Books, an early literacy group for young black boys. You know, there are black boys who don't have black male reading models at school or at home. Right? But yet people are surprised or curious or frustrated about why black boys aren't reading.

Alvin's mom was a teacher, and she made sure he learned how to read at an early age. And what that meant is that she would. make me do reading lessons with her. And it wasn't with like fun, creative picture books. No, it was like boring Dick and James textbooks or whatever she had. So he kind of hated reading. Yeah, I did not read for fun as a child. Ever really.

But as a teenager, Alvin took matters into his own hands. Here he is on the TED stage. High school changed everything. In 10th grade, my regular English class read short stories and its spelling tests. Out of sheer boredom, I asked to be switching to another class. The next semester, I joined Advanced English. We read two novels and wrote two book reports that semester. The drastic difference and rigor between these two English classes angered me

and spurred questions like, Where'd all these white people come from? My high school was over 70% black and Latino, but this advanced English class had white students everywhere. This personal encounter with institutionalized racism altered my relationship with reading forever. I learned that I couldn't depend on a school, a teacher, or curriculum to teach me what I needed to know.

And more out of, like, rebellion than being into, I decided I would no longer allow other people to dictate when and what I read. So, so, Alvin, how did you begin to read and learn outside of school after having that realization? And how did that lead to the key thing, the key word, I think, which is identity? Yeah, I think that there were two books that I read in high school on my own. that certainly influenced me. One of those was gifted hands, which was the autobiography

of Ben Carson. But that book, I read it. Someone gave it to me. Maybe it was my sophomore year, and I read that book every year. I was in high school because it was so inspiring. And then I read the autobiography

of Malcolm X. And when I read that, you know, I don't know. It was difficult to look at white people for a few days. I had to give myself some meantime. But I would say that reading those books for myself helped shape my identity as a reader

in helping me to understand that I could be in control. And that unlocked something in me that I think is connected to my understanding that if I wanted to learn something, I could actually go and read something and learning. There are countless black boys who remain trapped in illiteracy. According to the U.S. Department of Education,

more than 85% of blackmail fourth graders are not proficient in reading. 85%. The more challenges to reading children face, the more culturally competent educators need to be. Many of the children's books promoted to black boys, focus on serious topics like slavery, civil rights, and biographies. Less than 2% of teachers in the United States are black males, and a majority of black boys are raised by single mothers.

There are literally young black boys who have never seen a black man reading, or never had a black man encouraged him to read. What cultural factors? What social cues are present that would lead a young black boy to conclude their reading, is even something he should do. So you're saying that kids need to see people around them reading. Tell me how you found a different way to make reading part of kids' everyday lives to do that with barbershop books. Yeah. So I was teaching first grade in the Bronx, and there was a barbershop across the street from my school.

And so one day after school, I'm getting a haircut, and one of my first graders walks into the shop, and he just kind of pops down on the sofa, starts staring out of the window, starts getting antsy, you know, and his mom is like, sit down, you know, stop, you know, moving around. And he's my student. I know his reading level, right? So the whole time I'm observing this, all I keep thinking is, oh, I wish I had a children's book to give him because he should be practicing his reading right now. But I didn't.

I didn't have a book. And so I remember thinking to myself, you know what, someone should put children's books in barbershops so that while children are waiting, they have fun books to read. The mission is simple, to help young black boys identify as readers. Lots of black boys go to the barbershop once or twice a month. Some see their barbers more than they see their fathers. Barbershop Books connects reading to a male-centered space and involves black men in boys' early reading experiences.

This identity-based reading program uses a curated list of children's books recommended by black boys. These are the books that they actually want to read. Scholastic's 2016 Kids and Family Report found that the number one thing children look for when choosing a book is a book that will make them laugh. So if we're serious about helping black boys and other children to read when it's not read, required, we need to incorporate relevant male reading models into early literacy and exchange some of the children's books that adults love so much for funny, silly, or even gross books like Gross Greg. So Gross Greg happens to be a children's book that you wrote in 2016. Basketball cheering. Look, the people are cheering. They're saying, Gross Greg. Gross. Wait, wait, wait. I need everybody to say,

And it's about a kid who grosses everyone out by publicly eating his boogers. And you actually recorded a reading that you did for some first graders a few years ago. And they, I mean, God, I just love listening to them respond to you. Boogers. Gray calls them delicious little. So Alvin, I have to ask, what are you thinking about? this school year because a lot of kids, they're not actually in school. What would you tell parents who are worried about keeping their kids on track with reading and giving them a way to identify,

to start to identify as readers? Yeah, I mean, there are some practical and simple things that parents can do. Read physical books. If a child sees you looking at a path, they don't know whether or not you're reading. Right. I have parents all the time. Mr. Irby, my son doesn't want to read. What can I do, Mr. Irby, his reading skills? And I was like, well, has your son, does your son see you reading? Well, Mr. Irby, I read to him a few times a week. No, no, no, no, not do you read to him a few times a week.

Does your son or daughter see you read? Hmm. And so reading physical books in front of your children provide excellent modeling for them. Because, you know, this is what I learned teaching kindergarten. first grade. At the end of the day, kids just want to be grown. Whatever they see the grown people in their lives doing, that's what they want to do. And so if they don't see the grown people, the people who feed them, who call them, who love them, if they don't see them reading, then they may conclude that maybe reading isn't something that they do in their family. Instead of fixating on skills

and moving students from one reading level to another, or forcing struggling readers to memorize lists of unfamiliar words, we should be asking ourselves this question. How can we inspire children to identify as readers? Dismantling the savage inequalities that plague American education requires us to create reading experiences that inspire all children to say three words. I'm a reader. Thank you.

That's Alvin Irby. He's the author of the children's book, Gross Gregg, and the founder of Barbershop Books. You can find his full talk at ted.com. On the show today, the School of Life, how sometimes the biggest lessons happen in unexpected places. I was back in Ohio for a family wedding. And when I was there, there was a meet-and-greet with Anna and Elsa from Frozen, and my three-and-a-half-year-old niece Samantha was in the thick of it. She could care less that these two women were signing posters and coloring books as Snow Queen and Princess Anna with one end to avoid copyright lawsuits.

According to my niece and the 200-plus kids in the parking lot that day, this was the Anna and Elsa from Frozen. This is Ash Beckham on the TED stage. She's the aunt of a young girl who loves the movie Frozen and also an LGBTQ rights advocate. And so part of Ash's job is teaching people how to talk about gender and sexual orientation, which brings us back to that hot summer day in Ohio when Ash and her niece were waiting to meet Anna and Elsa. We get there at 10 o'clock the scheduled start time, and we are handed number 59. By 11 o'clock, they had called numbers 21 through 25.

This was going to be a while. And there is no amount of free face painting or temporary tattoos that could prevent the meltdowns that were occurring outside of this store. So, as we stood in line in an attempt to give my niece a better vantage point than the backside of the mother of number 58, I put her up on my shoulders. And she was instantly riveted by the sight of the princesses. And as we move forward, her excitement only grew. And as we finally got to the front of the line,

and number 58 unfurled her poster to be signed by the princesses, I could literally feel the excitement running through her body. And let's be honest, at that point, I was pretty excited, too. I mean, the Scandinavian decadence was mesmerizing. So we get to the front of the line, and the haggard clerk turns to monies and says, Hi, honey, you're next. Do you want to get down, or are you going to stay on your dad's shoulders for the picture?

And I was, for lack of a better word, frozen. Oh, Ash, I mean, what was going through your mind in that moment? You've been standing in line forever. It's so hot. You finally get to the front. And then you're referred to as your niece's dad. Well, I think everybody has been mistaken for something they're not, right? We've all been miscategorized in some way, especially when it's in a way that either feels

accusatory or kind of contrary to how you see yourself and how you choose to be presented. And so for me, it was really challenging because that is like my Achilles heel. I think has been being mistaken for the wrong gender, you know, the way I see myself, I've always identified as a woman. I think my gender identity has always been a woman. but my gender expression, the way that I dress is androgynous. And I don't deny that at a glance I look like a man. But in that context, I was wearing, you know, a tighter shirt than I would usually wear,

kind of displaying my, as feminine as I get, you know, from my body type. And even so uncomfortable in that way, but uncomfortable to make myself seen as a woman have that not happen in front of family, and then it happened anyway. And so you're just, you're, you know, simultaneously under a spotlight, but also invisible. So back to Toledo, Ohio, the frazzled clerk calls me dad. And I hope with every ounce of my body that no one heard, not my sister, not my girlfriend, and certainly not my niece. I'm accustomed to this familiar hurt, but I will do what ever.

I need to do to protect the people I love from it. So in an unexpected instant, we are faced with the question, who am I? Am I an aunt? Or am I an advocate? Would I take my niece off my shoulders and turn to the clerk and explain to her that I was in fact her aunt, not her father, and that she should be more careful

and not jump to gender conclusions based on haircuts and shoulder rides? And while doing that, miss out on what was to this point the greatest moment of my niece's life. Or would I be an aunt? Would I brush off that comment to not be distracted for an instant

from the pure joy of that moment? And by doing that, walk out with the shame that comes up for not standing up for myself, especially in front of my niece. You know, you have these two sides of you. So, you know, professionally and then also personally, you know, my professional personal life is really intertwined. And so I see myself as an advocate and I had developed some skills and some talking points and these ways to have conversations.

But I think a lot of times we put ourselves under a tremendous amount of pressure that, you know, we can't let one moment pass us by without making these kind of moral stands that we identify ourselves with. But then I take my knees off my shoulders. And she runs to Elsa and Anna, the thing she's been waiting so long for, and all that stuff goes away. All that matters is the smile on her face. And as the 30 seconds we waited two and a half hours for comes to a close, we gather up our things, and I lock eyes with the clerk again. She gives me an apologetic smile. And in that moment, she kind of mouthed and I'm sorry.

Like she got it and we made the connection. And she realized she made the mistake. And her humanity, her willingness to admit her mistake disarms me immediately. And I give her a, it's okay. It happens. But thanks. Ash, you chose to let it go. Right.

You know, it's that empathy that we have to, even in those tense situations, how do we take a moment to give somebody the benefit of the doubt, right? Yeah. That, you know, that this person wasn't homophobic or, you know, all of the like stereotypes that we would give somebody that would challenge that. Like she was just a tired woman that took a glance. And so, sure, if you're exhausted and you take a quick moment and do that, like, you make that mistake.

And then I think, you know, I would have missed the experience I was trying to have. Like, you don't have to be on guard all the time. So what would you say that this moment, like how did it change for you? I guess prior to this, I hadn't really seen that there was a moment. middle ground. And now I guess you see that there always is a middle ground. I don't have to be one of these two things. You know, I have to be the advocate or be the aunt that I can exist in this, the vast majority of the world is gray. And we have to give ourselves room to operate in that space. You know, I was thinking like what was going on through that woman's mind. And this woman has her own

moment, right? Right. And she had to decide what to do too. And I, I love that she decided to mouth an apology to you to say, sorry. Right. She could have just ignored it as well, right? That's certainly the easier thing to do, right? Yeah. Like more times than not, people just then avoid eye contact, right? Like, they know they made a mistake, it's over, they say nothing.

They kind of pretend it didn't happen and just get through it. But she knew that that was a mistake. She knew she did it in front of my knee. Like, she was very aware of the situation, the impact that I'd had, and took the moment to do the right thing. Or to do the empathetic and compassionate thing to apologize, to kind of own that mistake. To say, I see you. Exactly. And that's all we all want, right, is to be seen.

I think when people see you and take the time to do that, you reflexively do the same. And so I think the impact of that is so significant. when we can be the person that makes the first step, we know what that response is going to be, right? The people are going to come back at us the same way. That's LGBTQ rights advocate Ash Beckham. You can see her full talk at ted.com. Thank you so much for listening to our show this week on the School of Life.

To learn more about the people who were on it, go to ted.npr.org. And to see hundreds more TED Talks, check out TED.com or the TED app. Our TED Radio production staff at NPR includes Jeff Rogers, Sanaz Meskampur, Rachel Faulkner, Diba Motisham, James Delahousie, J.C. Howard, Katie Montalione,

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